Jaina System of Education

Author(s): Debendra Chandra Das Gupta
Publisher: Bharti Mahavidyalaya

Page 79

LECTURE VII
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future fortunes 11 The same view is stressed again in the Kathāsaritsāgara where the boys played the game of kingship 12
The gradual development of the physical, emotional and mental characteristics of the child upto the period of adolescence is a remarkable phenomenon to be noted and the Jaina authority Hemacandra noted this phenomenon with exactitude in the course of the child Goyama We quote below an extract relavent to the point "Their
cheeks were like golden mirrors, and their eyes tender and soft like _ears_ryth beautiful wholes looked like pearl-oysters, and their necks 7790-assess by three lines, like conches Their shoulders were arched
frontal boss of an elephant, and their arms were long and o fike the king of serpents Their breasts resembled slaps of
a ila, and their navels were very deep like the mind Their uovere slender as the middle part of a thunderbolt, their thighs,
nand soft, had the shape of an elephant's trunk Their legs L ane ke the legs of a deer, and their feet had straight toes like the
194 öf the sthalapadma "13 With the physical changes in the adole92 de ouths of both sexes there is a change in their voice as well domą er, satatasamitābhiyukta, the young man of good family or the E en lady who keeps, teaches, proclaims, writes this Dharmaparyāya
Save an organ of taste possessed of twelve hundred good faculties of the tongue
A sweet, tender, agreeable, deep voice goes out from him, an amiable voice which goes to the heart, at which those creatures will be ravished and charmed, and those to whom he preaches, after having heard his sweet voice, so tender and melodious, will even (if they are) gods, be of opinion that they ought to go and see, venerate, and serve him "14
Adolescence is marked by physical as well as by mental vigour According to Jaina fathers intelligence begins to grow mature even from boyhood “And this, after having passed childhood, and with just ripened intellect, having reached the state of youth, will become a brạve, a gallant, and valorous king, the lord of the realm, with a
11 Hemacandra, Sthavnávali Carita, edited by Hermann Jacobi, p 236 . 12 Kathāsarıtsāgai ?, vol 1, ti by CH Tawney, MA, p 57
13 Trisastıśalākā-purusa-Caritia, vol I, p 72 14 The Saddharma-Punduika, ti by H Kern, pp 346-347.
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